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Per Webster's, "hobo" arises from a rhyming compound based on the greeting ho, beau.
Another one of those million etymologies words. Look arond some of the word origin sites and you'll see yet more, all of them debunked by somebody or other.
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"Once a bum always a bum."
--John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley
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Stales has it right that Hoboken is a place; it's a city in northern New Jersey, just across the harbor from New York City and noted as being the place where Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr. (At that time, Hoboken was a remote suburb where one could have a duel in privacy.)
"Hoboken numbers" are classification numbers given to the works of Franz Josef Hayden, named after the first editor/collector of his works, some unknown-to-me Herr Professor Hoboken (Musik -- any light on this?) and, as such are like the "K. nos." given to the works of Mozart, such as the Piano Concerto No. 21, K.467. K. stands for Koechel, the first editor/collector of Mozart. The work of Johann Sebastian Bach is generally classed by BWV numbers, but that is no one's name; it stands for "Bachwerkverein" the standard edition of the collected works of JSB.
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In reply to:
I knew a woman had a t shirt with the words itty bitty titty committee writ across it. She was about a size 44 EE.
She'd have to be to fit it all on. And to cross threads, "writ" as opposed to written?
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Stales has it right that Hoboken is a place; it's a city in northern New Jersey, just across the harbor from New York City and noted as being the place where Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr.
And is also known for having the largest mosquitos of any major city on the North American continent.
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SY, BobY, who is Hoboken named after? I always thought it was a Leni Lenape (Amerind) name. But your citation sounds like it might also be an old German/Germanic name (if, indeed, Professor Hoboken is not some mythological entity). And let's not forget to mention when speaking of Hoboken that many credit the town as the birthplace of baseball, the first game said to have been played at the fabled Elysian Fields. Most folks now dismiss the Cooperstown/Abner Doubleday origin as a fabrication. Thanks, all, for the great entymological look at hobo! And when I was a young rebel I had a T-shirt made with that Steinbeck quote on it, "Once a bum always a bum." People who didn't like long-hairs would sneer at it until they saw the John Steinbeck citation and they'd do a double-take! Sometimes they'd say, "John Steinbeck said that?" And I'd say, "Yup! He sure did! Ha!" Great fun to tweak folks like that then!  Never did find a way to make a living as a bum, though!  But my Dad once introduced me to a funeral gathering of old relatives, when I was in my 20's, as a "retired bum!" I'm still workin' on that one!
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Talen Thomas, a poet currently residing in California, wrote a poem called "The Hobo That Gives a Hoot". I wish I knew the whole thing, but my favorite line is "I have thrown caution to the wind so many times...the wind is fairly full of caution." Another is "They say that hobos don't give a hoot. I'll give a hoot to anyone that asks. Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!"
That last is delivered for as long as the breath holds out, kinda like a train whistle. See what happens when you hang out around a bonfire at Stone Circle. You get infected by poetry.
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See http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-hob1.htm. Note the distinction between hobo, one who travels to find work and tramp, one who travels to avoid work.
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Sparteye:
Doubtless you are correct, but there's also a school of thought that many of these vagrants were former pugilists whose brains had been addled by a few too many punches. They were known as homeless boxers, which quickly was abbreviated as hobo.
There's actually not a WORD of truth in the preceding paragraph except for the first phrase of the first sentence. But truthfully there is a dog rescue group here which calls itself HOBO because they rescue homeless boxers.
Ted--mourning the loss of his faithful Shorts, who went to the big back yard in the sky yesterday at the incredible old age of ca. 15, Methuselah for boxers.
TEd
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Shorts, who...
Oh, Honey, I'm sorry! Pets can really become one of the family (Hi Pearl, lusy, et. al.). The dog I had the longest died at the same age--or rather, I had her put down when the pain-relief shots stopped working--and I still get tears in my eyes, thinking of that day. I gave her one last huge treat: her favorite, a peppermint stick!--and took her.
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